2015 Caesar Award Results — A Belated Hail to James PeiFeb. 14, 2016

James Pei repeated as Caesar to become
the third back-to-back BPA Top Gamer of the year while adding 186 to his leading career laurel
total of 2,332. It was his third Top Dog performance which leads
the BPA laurels universe. His 33-laurel margin of victory over
runner-up Sceadeau D’Tela was tripled by his 100 laurel haul for
his specialty For The People where he once again swept
both the WBC event and its email counterpart. Over the years,
Pei has amassed a staggering 862 laurels in all versions of For
The People competition—nearly 37% of his career totals.
A repeat win in Sekigahara and a pair of CDW thirds in Hannibal and Washington's War were enough to guarantee
his third Caesar title.

Mini-con tournaments no longer played a role in the outcome
but email tournaments did, enabling James to bank a 60-laurel
headstart before WBC began. Runner-up Sceadeau D’Tela also benefitted
from an email headstart—with 8 laurles in Tzolkin but
that bonus was dwarved by the CDW mastery of Pei in his specialty.
Even a pair of wins in Agricola and Egizia backed
by three other lesser scores weren’t enough to overcome Pei’s
initial advantage.

Rounding out the top six BPA competitors for 2015 were Ewan
McNay, Andrew Emerick, Kevin Youells and Riku Riekkinen. Only
six of last year’s Top 25 players managed to retain that top billing
led by Pei, who alone of all BPA’s Top Dogs, has managed to remain
in the Top 25 for each of the past seven years. In fact, you have
to go back nine years to 2006 to find the last time “The
Master” did not place in the Top 25. The others able to retain
their Top 25 standing in 2015 were Sceadeau D'Tela (fifth year
in a row), George Young, Keith Dent, Karl Henning and Randy Buehler
(sixth year). Nearly half of this year's crop had not appeared
in the Top 25 class in the past seven years.

Ewan McNay vaulted over both James Pei and Sceadeau D’Tela
to score annual metagaming honors for the first time in earning
the 2015 Consul award. Stripping away email and Pre-Con laurels
left McNay in the lead as all of his 120 laurel total was earned
during WBC week wih a triple win in Ingenius,
Britannia and Robo Rally.
The movement of WBC to a full nine-day format
in 2016 will remove the concept of Pre-Cons and, thus, make email
tournaments the sole difference between Caesar and Consul honors
in the future.

The Mighty Finn, Riku Riekkinen, finished second with 112 laurels—eight behind McNay.
Three runner-up finishes in 1989, Russian
Railroads and Twilight Struggle cost him the title,
as a victory in any of them would have made him Consul. Sceadeau
D’Tela was third—11 laurels behind—done in by the loss of
his Pre-Con laurels for a second in Through the Ages. Caesar
James Pei was sixth, 18 laurels off the pace and four behind relative
newcomers Max DuBoff and Ryan Romanik, who tied for fourth. Completing
the Top Ten were Wade Campbell, Matt Calkins, triple winner Ricky
Boyes, and Duncan McGregor. All but Calkins were WBC newcomers
of varying degrees.